The practice of defining rules or “filters” that are automatically applied by an email client or server in order to determine the priority of a received email message is known. Typically, filter criteria are based on information extracted from the received email message, such as: the identity of the message sender; the identity of one or more message recipients; the content of subject line of the message; the email importance flag setting; or combinations of these. When a received email message meets specified filter criteria, the email client or server automatically assigns a high priority (or a low priority, depending upon the filter settings) to the message. The notification behavior of the email client in respect of the message may be altered from a standard notification behavior in order to reflect this priority. For example, the appearance of the received message in a message list may be changed, e.g. by using bold, differently colored, or differently sized text than is ordinarily used to represent the message, or by applying different audio or vibration notifications depending upon message priority. For messages that do not meet the specified criteria, a standard priority may be assigned to the message, and standard notification may be performed.
Unfortunately, when the above practice is adopted, a message may disadvantageously be treated as a standard priority message even if contextual factors beyond the message itself, such as the high priority of a previous message to which the message is a response, suggest that the message should actually be treated as a high priority message. This may result in a mistaken user perception that an email message is unimportant when it is not. Conversely, it is also possible for a message to be treated as a high priority message when conventional factors suggest it should actually be treated as a standard or low priority message. Generally, the priority that is assigned to a message may not truly reflect its actual priority. This problem may also occur for other types of electronic messages, including SMS messages, MMS messages or others. A solution which mitigates or obviates this problem would be desirable.